Thelma and Louise - Definition and Overview

Thelma and Louise is a road movie from 1991 conceived and written by Callie Khouri, co-produced and directed by Ridley Scott, and starring Geena Davis as Thelma, Susan Sarandon as Louise, and Harvey Keitel as a sympathetic detective trying to solve crimes that the two women find it easier and easier to commit. Michael Madsen plays Louise's boyfriend and Christopher McDonald plays Thelma's controlling husband. Brad Pitt (in his first significant role in a major Hollywood film) plays a robber on parole who befriends Thelma on the road.

The film follows the women as they head out in Louise's 1966 Thunderbird for a two-day adventure which starts horribly but then sees them change from victims of circumstance into icons of feminism.

The film shares plot line and visual elements with other road movies, particularly the 1979 movie Messidor by Alain Tanner.

Khouri won an Academy Award for a Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen; Scott, Davis, Sarandon, cinematographer Adrian Biddle, and film editor Thom Noble also won Oscar nominations. The film also won Scott nominations for a César Award for Best Foreign Film and a DGA Award.

The British Film Institute published a book (ISBN 0851708099) about the film in 2000, as part of a Modern Classics series.